Welcome back everyone!

Aloha everyone and welcome back to school!  I'm super excited to start off the year; we have a lot of work ahead of us but we also have a lot to celebrate!  For instance:

• we showed improvement in our school wide HSA scores for reading, math, and science as well as most of our end of course exam scores over the previous year.  Our StriveHI rating stays the same as last year, Continuous Improvement, which is the category that 75-85% of all Hawaii schools are in
• our discipline data is also showing improvements... click on the Menehune Matters PowerPoint posted on the school website
• we had one teacher participate in an externship and five students in an internship with our business partner, Syngenta
• our ag field was cleared and is being prepped to put in our Hawaiian Garden
• 45 students came to school daily in June and July and earned back a lost credit
• we had our first ever band camp that ended last week
• 3 teachers attended the AP Institute last week on Oahu -- Mr. O'Day for AP US History, Ms. Kellogg for AP Spanish, and Mr. Messer for AP Calculus
• I'm working with our Facilities Development Department to finalize our Memorandum of Understanding with Head Start; I'm hoping that needed renovations and paperwork will be completed by September and we will be able to welcome our little Menehunes to campus shortly after.  Having the preschool on campus will be a great opportunity for our Explorations in Education students to practice what they're learning with Ms. Camara
• we've begun planning with Gary Ellwood from KCC... he's planning to visit each 11th and 12th grade advisory this fall with other KCC faculty and Waimea HS grads who are now attending KCC.  The idea is to introduce what post-HS opportunities are available right here on Kauai to our students

Teachers report back to work tomorrow, July 28th, and have the day to set up their classrooms and prep for the new year.  We will have a full day of professional development (PD) on formative assessment and grading practices with Tom Shimmer from Canada on Tuesday, another full day of PD on Wednesday when we will go over changes/updates/mandates for this year as well as the Opening of School year compliance pieces we need to do annually.  Thursday will be another day for teachers to prep and Friday, August 1st will be the first day of school for our freshmen.  Upperclassmen report to school on Monday, August 4th.

You may be aware of our new bell schedule that extends our school day and school year (also posted on school website).  We're all going to have to get used to 'skinny Mondays' when we have all 7 periods and then B Days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, A Days on Wednesdays and Fridays.  The good thing about this new bell schedule is that the days are set which makes it easier to plan our our school resources/events, testing, and training for the year.

Our school received affirmation of our WASC accreditation through June 2017; we also received a list of eight (8) recommendations from our mid-term visiting committee.  These recommendations, folded into the DOE 6 Priority Strategies, and our school strategic plan, STREAM, will drive our efforts at Waimea HS to ensure that every student will be college and career ready by the time he/she leaves WHS.  We will be working hard to build teacher leaders at the school level this year; for any change to be sustainable, we must take ownership of it ourselves.

Finally, this blogging thing is totally foreign to me, so please be patient as I work out the kinks. :) One of our 8 WASC recommendations calls for teachers to communicate electronically with our stakeholders; this year I am asking teachers to create and maintain an online presence beginning this school year as  part of our implementation plan.  I can't ask anyone to do something I'm not willing to do myself.... so here it is!

Take care and wish me luck as I now attempt to add some additional information to this page!

Aloha,

Mrs. Anguay

• lkjsummer teacher externship/student internships

• clearing ag field for Hawaiian garden
• 3 teachers attending AP Summer Institute
• Head Start Preschool opening on campus
• increasing KCC presence on campus thru advisory/mock interviews and tour (gr. 11/12)
• summer credit recovery: ___/54 completed
• summer band camp
• enrollment!

• summer teacher externship/student internships
• clearing ag field for Hawaiian garden
• 3 teachers attending AP Summer Institute
• Head Start Preschool opening on campus
• increasing KCC presence on campus thru advisory/mock interviews and tour (gr. 11/12)
• summer credit recovery: ___/54 completed
• summer band camp
• enrollment!

• summer teacher externship/student internships
• clearing ag field for Hawaiian garden
• 3 teachers attending AP Summer Institute
• Head Start Preschool opening on campus
• increasing KCC presence on campus thru advisory/mocrviews and tour (gr. 11/12)
• summer credit recovery: ___/54 completed
• summer band camp
• enrollnt!